Man uses boundless energy to promote benefits of bicycles

Bicyclist Richard Fries knows how to combat childhood obesity: Get up and get out.

If you’re looking for Richard Fries, don’t bother going to his house. Even though his car is sitting in his driveway, he’s not there.

Fries may be in Europe, announcing a professional cycling race, or in California doing the same. He may be in Boston, organizing charity races for Anthony Kennedy Shriver’s Best Buddies program for intellectually disabled people. He could be at Fiske Elementary or Diamond Middle School in Lexington, Mass., watching his children participate in a school play or science fair.

Or he could be anywhere in between, pedaling furiously on his bicycle and mixing it up with motorists along the way.

Fries is a professional journalist who lives a relentlessly active life; it’s the only way he knows how. His mantra: Fight obesity and our dependence on oil by getting up and getting out.

“I walk a lot, and I ride my bike just to get around,” said Fries. “I eat what I want, and I probably drink too much wine.”

At 47, he credits his youthful spirit and appearance to perpetual motion. He easily looks 30. He sees a crisis in America, where obesity is rampant and an addiction to petroleum is out of hand because people drive less than a mile to the supermarket.

Fries can remember when cars stopped and waited for street hockey games to finish. He mourns the days when kids played in the street and wandered through neighborhoods and backyards.

“We walked everywhere,” Fries said. “Kids today know about the rainforest, but they don’t know there is a pond 200 yards from their house.”

He said more kids are run over by family cars in their own driveway than are abducted while playing down the street. He feels schools are very important; Fries is active in all three of his children’s classrooms. But he feels sometimes parents and educators are missing the boat.

“We think it is all about curriculum and MCAS scores,” he said. “All major impacts happened on my way to and from school, not in the classroom. The real growth of a kid takes place roaming.”

A change of career

Fries grew up in just outside Pittsburgh, and attended the University of Southern Florida for a degree in history. At the time, he couldn’t afford a car, so he bought a bike to get around.

“Every day, I just wanted to go a little faster,” he said.

One day, he signed up for a bicycle race in Florida and lost badly. The next year, he won the same race.

“Something about it just fit,” Fries said. “I was just kind of an average kid growing up. The next think I know I’m in New York City racing in Central Park. I had never been to New York before. Next thing I know I’m racing in Spain under the Roman aqueducts.”

Fries spent a few years as a professional cyclist, but at 24 he saw something during a race in Spain that heralded the end of his career: a young Miguel Induráin. The future five-time Tour de France winner crushed one of Fries’ better performances by 26 seconds, a lifetime in bicycle racing.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” Fries said. “[He was going so fast and looked so strong] I thought his skin suit was going to rip off his body. Right then, I said ‘I’m going to graduate school.’”

Fries went to Northeastern for his master’s in journalism, and spent 10 years writing for the Lynn Item. He met his wife, Deborah, and together they started “The Ride,” a critically acclaimed regional cycling magazine.

Along the way, Fries and his wife had three children, Grant, Emily and Madison, which helped steer Fries towards his next career turn: broadcasting.

“I could never make enough money to feed all these damn kids,” Fries said, laughing. “[So I started] getting paid good money to talk about a thing I love.”

Fries’ enthusiasm and knowledge of cycling turned out to be a formidable combination. He has worked for Fox Sports, ESPN, NESN, and the Outdoor Life Network (OLN, now Versus).

Scott Page invited Fries to announce his cycling race in Rochester, N.Y., The Saturn Rochester Twilight Criterium, for the first time in 2005. By his own admission, he didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.

“The first year that I hired him for his services as a professional announcer, I had also hired a local radio DJ who works for the No. 1 station in Rochester,” said Page in an e-mail. “As he was approaching the event and witnessed [Fries’] magic for all of about five minutes, he looked over at me and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t even come close to what this person is doing. He’s amazing. I’ll introduce the mayor for you and I’m going to stay out of his way for the rest of the evening.’”

Mention Fries’ name to those that know him, and they’ll expound on his seemingly boundless energy.

“I sometimes fear I’ll learn that he simply keeled over and died one day, as he seems to have already put out a lifetime’s worth of energy by his mid-40s,” said Alan Cote, a fellow bike racer and cycling journalist who has known Fries for more than 15 years. “I think he has a metaphorical secret spare battery pack somehow.”

Fries promotes cycling all over the country, but most recently has worked for Best Buddies, a charity that raises money to help people with intellectual disabilities.

Fries moved to Lexington with his family in 1990, and bought a house right on the bike path. He rides his bike to work every day, and estimates his monthly gas bill at $20.

The bike path, he said, is not for professional cyclists cruising at top speeds through suburban Boston.

“It’s about moms with strollers and old guys. It’s the new Main Street. It’s where you see your neighbors.”

He considers Lexington Center to be his living room. He is an ardent defender of Lexington’s sidewalks and crosswalks, guarding them from the luxury SUVs that patrol the town’s streets. For Fries, it’s just another piece of his active philosophy, one he hopes can turn the tide in America’s dependence on oil.

“At what point do you stop getting in the car for the 30-second drive?” he asks. “The laws of supply and demand have been replaced been replaced by the laws of addiction.”

Fries was shocked by opposition to the bike path during its inception. Now it upsets Fries that Lexington doesn’t plow the bike path like neighboring Arlington, Mass., does.

People like Fries will ride regardless. It’s the casual user that is affected, the elderly and the children who get out on their bikes for some fun, he said. Around each turn of the path, or the road, or a bike trail, there is something new and wondrous to see that you can’t find at your house.

For Fries, behind all the worry of obesity, global warming and oil addiction, that’s what cycling boils down to.

“That’s what bikes are all about,” said Fries. “They’re about adventure and fun.”